road trip #2

here's part two of winter break, vegas, Hoover Dam, and grand canyon. 6 days of recovery after an exhausting year.

The Eiffel Tower at Vegas, city of excess. It was dripping with money and lights, fascinating but not a wise place to live perhaps. Very tiring urban hikes, but made worth while with the fountains of Bellagio, and of course, the company.


Chee Wei from Cornell, Morris from Berkeley, and Keith from Wesleyan, carpool buddies and fellow Peru veterans! They livened up the long journeys (12 hour car rides! 8 hour walks!) with their great sense of humor and singing and itunes playlists and junk food loading and general companionship. This is at the Hoover Dam. I love how Keith looks in pictures, very boyish and easy-going, just as he is in real life.

One of many shots of the Grand Canyon. A quote from a US president calls the canyon "beautiful and terrible and unearthly". It seemed to stretch out to infinity, calling out to us, but always out of reach, fenced away from us, because it'd consume us if we went too deep. Hiking was a dangerous business, someone died in there before from lack of adequate preparation. But also hilarious cos we lost half our team before we began and resorted to signs in the ground and other trekkers to reunite.
Again, at the canyon. We drove around quite a bit there. Morris who's directly behind me sticking his head out has really taken very good care of us throughout winter, from organising the Peru trip to making sure that we're living sensibly while having fun. Very grateful to him for letting me tag along on the Peru expedition, cos there's so much to learn and enjoy from this winter break and from him especially. Now to find the courage to tell him all this, because he's older and i'm scared of him sometimes.

Heh heh. Possibly my favourite picture? Mr Chee Wei, diva, rebel, languid and decadent, engineering book lover (a first!), Vegas fan. I love his sense of style and mobile expressions.

The highlight of Part Two of Winter was getting to know these people better i guess. Second best thing was being able to relax, finally. And learning that i can be myself, it's up to me to exert my personality, and much of my prior discontent was my own mind's doing.

shup, you're visiting ME with your savings!!! ignore jo!